Branson Short Term Rental Expenses: Full Guide to Airbnb Costs and Budgeting

Avery [00:00:00]:
Foreign.

Bill Beck [00:00:04]:
Everybody, welcome to the Short Term show special episode series on Branson, Missouri where we are doing a 10 episode deep dive on how to buy a short term rental in Branson. So we’ve got a few supplemental materials for y’ all in addition to the content on this podcast over on our website. So any questions you have about purchase prices and searching properties, you can do that on our website. We also have the Air DNA data thanks to our friends over at Air DNA income data on properties in Branson. So you can find these things at the short term shop.com so www.the shorttermshop.com purchase prices and income data. If you want to buy a short term rental property with a Short Term Shop agent in Branson, you can email us at agents the ShortTermshop.com or if you just like us, you just want to hang out with us more, there’s a few ways you can do that can join our Facebook group. It’s the same title as my book. It’s called Short Term Rental Long Term.

Bill Beck [00:01:01]:
We we are over there talking about short term rental investing all day, every day. Or if you prefer to talk to us in person or virtual person, you can join our Zoom call that we have every Thursday. You can sign up for that@strquestions.com we’ll catch you guys over there. Hey guys, welcome back to another episode on Branson of the Short Term Shop special episode series. Today we’re going to talk about common expenses for the market. So things that you’re going to have to pay for. So this is the purpose of this is to help you with your analysis. So we have another the previous episode was on income and data numbers.

Bill Beck [00:01:49]:
Now we’re going to talk about your expense line items. So got a great pair here to help me talk about this. Bill. They’re going to recognize you from previous episodes, but go ahead and introduce yourself.

Avery [00:02:01]:
I am Bill Beck, just joined the Short Term Shop here a couple weeks ago. I’ve worked with vacation rental investors since 2017 as a buying consultant and have been a real estate agent since end of 2020. So.

Bill Beck [00:02:16]:
All right, and next, another familiar face, Tyanne Marcink Hammond. Tyann, you want to introduce yourself really quick even though they know who you are?

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:02:24]:
Absolutely. Thanks. I’m Ty and Marcin Cameron. I am the queen of guest experience with Touch Day digital guidebooks and also a longtime owner host property manager in the Branson area under Branson Family Retreats brand.

Bill Beck [00:02:37]:
Awesome. All right guys, so very experienced hosts here to talk about these expenses. So we’ll Start at the beginning with the normal stuff and work our way into the more nuanced things. So. And of course, very beginning. I always forget to turn off my email notifications. Sorry, guys. All right, so let’s talk about utilities.

Bill Beck [00:02:57]:
Is there anything specific about utilities that we need to understand? Like I would imagine you’re going to be electric, heat and air. Pretty typical. But I’ll let you guys go on that.

Avery [00:03:09]:
We have no gas here. That was something that like just kind of shocked me was like, what’s up with that? So we don’t have gas apparently because of what the lake. Is that right? Tyan? The lake prevents there from being like, someone told me that sometimes. So I don’t know if that’s fact or not, but that’s something that we don’t have. You know, gas that is running through any of our properties. There’s a little bit downtown Branson, but that was one of those things that was just. It’s interesting that this just doesn’t exist here. So.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:03:39]:
Yeah, I never, I never questioned that because we always wanted the electric just for a safety viewpoint as well as I don’t have to worry about natural gas and the things that go along with the gas. So the only type of gas that we deal with is propane tank and we just do the small propane tanks for our gas barbecue grills and the gas fire pits. And I guess that’s not a utilities, that’s just an ongoing expense as guest grill. And that’s one of the amenities that you definitely need to have here in Branson. So barbecue grill and then putting it in a safe spot. But the different thing about the utilities in the Branson area I thought was super interesting is you need to check with your HOA because sometimes they include the utilities. So several of the neighborhoods that we are in, the HOA or coa actually includes our water and sewer and trash. So when you look at those high numbers, you got to think about, okay, what all does it actually include? Because it will include some utilities.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:04:37]:
I know there’s one neighborhood that includes the Internet service as well. Now Internet service in the area is such a fun, fun subject. And I’m going to drip a sarcasm at this point if you guys cannot understand it at all. Because we have an amazing lovingly relationship with Suddenlink, slash optimum now. And that is all tongue in cheek. We can’t stand them. It’s horrible. When you go to hook them up, especially with a new property.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:05:05]:
Just keep in mind you’re. You’re probably going to have them out with to you at least three times. That’s, that’s the minimum or about the magic number. We found the last house. We literally had a team member pretty much hold the technician hostage at the house and would not let him go until everything was completely hooked up. And it took several, several hours.

Avery [00:05:25]:
Yeah, I have an anecdote on that too, where I had a client from California that was like, hey man, can you help me out? He’s gonna be there from 1 till 5. So of course he shows up at 5:30. So I’ve been hanging out at his condo for four hours. And then it takes him another like hour and a half to be like, I didn’t bring everything, so I’ll need to come back.

Bill Beck [00:05:44]:
Why do they always like all of a sudden not have what they need? I don’t know, like you’ve been doing this all day probably, if you haven’t showed up until 5:30. What do you mean you don’t have what you need?

Avery [00:05:54]:
It’s a condo I’ve always recommended. Recently there’s an account transfer form so you can get the seller to basically fill out this form. And I pitched to the seller, basically that prevents them from having to go take their equipment back because they have to go take it back the normal way. And then the buyer would then need to schedule that tech to come out and reinstall it, which is a complete waste of time. So they have an account transfer form for personal and business fill it out. It basically assigns that contract to the buyer and that makes it way easier. And I’ve, I’ve had, it’s still, still giant pain because it’s like hard to get in touch with them. Their communication’s poor, but it’s, it’s at least a little bit better than trying to figure out the logistics of returning the equipment and then have them come right back out and redeliver it.

Bill Beck [00:06:45]:
Yeah. Oh man, I hate the having to return the equipment. That’s happened to me a number of times when my buyer would buy the property, get theirs hooked up, and then all of a sudden, here comes the listing agent two weeks after saying, hey, can you, can you go get those cable boxes and return them? And I’m like, not, not really.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:07:03]:
No.

Bill Beck [00:07:03]:
Like, I think they threw it away. That’s just such like. I know that sounds so bitchy, but it’s just not that easy to always to get out there. So that transfer form is, is genius because nobody wants to have to take somebody else’s, you know, whether it’s the buyer or whoever. Take somebody else’s cable boxes back. So anyway, but sounds like that’s a pain. So in terms of coverage of Internet, is there that same Internet, what’s the company called?

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:07:35]:
It’s suddenly. Well, okay, so we suddenly. But it was recently bought by Optimum.

Bill Beck [00:07:40]:
Okay.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:07:40]:
And who knows by the time someone listens to this, it could change again, I don’t know. But Optimum is what it’s currently called and if someone says Suddenly, that’s the same company.

Bill Beck [00:07:51]:
Okay, so do they have that everywhere? Are there areas that it may not cover that you might have to find some, some sort of like alternate solution?

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:07:59]:
Yeah, I have some folks that have had to look for like Hughes Net or the other Satellite Times. If you go further out, you might even need to do Starlink, Bill, Dino, any other companies in the area.

Avery [00:08:12]:
CenturyLink, Central Link’s another one. But yeah, Starlink if you’re in like the sticks.

Bill Beck [00:08:20]:
But yeah, what, so what is that Internet cost typically run?

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:08:26]:
It depends upon how many devices you have connected. And I say devices meaning cable boxes. So in the Branson area you pretty much have to have a TV in every single bedroom plus your living room, plus your family room. So you’ve got bedrooms time plus the extra living spaces. When you’re looking at my big houses were between 2, 200 and 300amonth. That’s also we always try to go for the fastest Internet possible because you’re going to have so many devices on there and they’re all going to be streaming, connecting, doing those different things. And when you’ve got a smaller condo, it still starts to get up there. I’ve got a personal condo down there and we’ve got ace, I mean one tv, that’s it in the box.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:09:09]:
And we’re still paying I think 75 to $100 a month. It’s ridiculous.

Avery [00:09:14]:
I told people don’t even mess around with cable. People don’t really need it. I’ve never gotten a bad review for my vacation. I’ve had for three years not a single mention of it ever. So I’ve just been getting by with Internet and I think mine’s 67 and change. So I do like the mid tier speed, not the like premium speed. Haven’t had too many complaints about it. So it’s just that balance.

Avery [00:09:37]:
But yeah, TV in every room, smart TV for sure.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:09:41]:
So yeah. But know who your guest is, if they can handle that because we do do the three, four generation families, we got to make sure that the person who’s paying for it understands and knows how to do everything. So we do cater to them, making sure that there is cable and easy to use TVs. We also even plug into. Okay, we. This is the certain TV we want all our clients to have because of remote control issues and things like that.

Bill Beck [00:10:07]:
Oh, yeah, yeah. We always use Roku smart TVs, just so the. The remote is the same across all of them. But we also just cut the cord with cable and we haven’t had any. I was really worried that we were going to have elderly guests who didn’t really understand how to use the streaming services, but we haven’t had any complaints yet either.

Avery [00:10:28]:
So that’s the thing about Branson. People aren’t coming here to chill. Usually they’re coming here to go do something and then come back and like, you know, hang out. So they’re not really like escaping so much to the property. They’re kind of using it as a launchpad to go see shows and all the other things that we have here.

Bill Beck [00:10:47]:
Awesome. So let’s circle back to the HOA and utilities. So is there. Are there any things that it’s like really common for the HOA to cover? Like most HOA around are going to cover X, Y and Z. Are there any things that most of them cover?

Avery [00:11:05]:
Building insurance, building maintenance, snow removal, groundskeeping. If there’s any like, facility amenities like pools. Those. Those are always like the. Generally what’s covered then just becomes like which communities have what.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:11:22]:
So and then with the bigger houses, those communities, some of them cover this sprinkler monitoring systems. So they’ll get the phone calls if one of your smoke alarms go off, goes off. And then other communities don’t cover that. So you have to pay for that individually. There’s also, let’s see, what do we say? Sewer water. You have to ask about assessments and see how old the community is. Are they doing assessments every other year for paving, for striping? Is anything going on with the common elements, the pools? Are they going to have repairs? Do they need to build something? So think about assessments and then look at how many owners are in the area and how many times that’s split and then how much money you may end up having to put back for assessments eventually.

Bill Beck [00:12:12]:
Yeah, I think a lot of people get really worried about HOA fees and assessments and they worry that they’re not going to make any money. But when you look at it, you have to always look at what the HOA covers. So I own one condo, not in Branson, but it’s $500 a month. For the HOA fee. But it covers a lot of things. It covers most everything but the interior insurance. It has three pools that I would have to maintain myself if I had one in the backyard. It covers Internet, water, trash, exterior maintenance, and like all these things that I would have to be paying for anyway if it were a single family with no hoa.

Bill Beck [00:12:53]:
And then when it comes to assessments, you kind of have to look at it as capex. Sort of like if you had a single family, you’d probably be putting, you know, X amount into replacing and capex and maybe paving your driveway and keeping your gravel good or, or your pavers or whatever’s there. And you’re doing that a little bit every now and then over time, whereas with a condo assessment, you’re not doing it at all. And then it all happens at one time. So it’s kind of the same thing. It’s just different timing. But I think a lot of people, when they see assessments and then when they see HOA fees, they automatically think, oh, I have all these expenses I have to pay and an additional 500 for no reason. When really that 500 covers a lot of the expenses that you would have to be paying yourself.

Avery [00:13:34]:
So I think it’s just a control thing. Right. Because people are like, I don’t want to be forced to do anything. Well, hey, your roof’s like leaking. Well, of course I’m going to take care of that. It’s like, well, hey, like we’re gonna have the hoa. Yeah, it’s like, whoa, it’s kind of. All right, whatever.

Bill Beck [00:13:53]:
Yeah. What are you guys seeing for the HOA fees that you guys are paying for your properties?

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:13:59]:
So in the houses, entry level.

Avery [00:14:01]:
Can I go with entry level? I’ll let you do the high end ones. So lowest of the low is like 129amonth and. Or 140amonth. And then your kind of your average isn’t this like 200, but this is for like all the 1, 2, 3, 4 bedroom condos. 200, 250, maybe 275 starts to creep up into the three hundreds. For certain communities, the most expensive is Point Royale. For the smaller condos, they have an annual. This is what’s really unique is that they have a split hoa.

Avery [00:14:35]:
Excuse me, poa, which is property Owners association fee, which is annual, and then they have a monthly condo association fee. So Point Real has a whole area that depending on which condo building you’re in, and then the square footage dictates what your coa is for. That particular month. And then you have to take care of the community. So the community property Owners association takes care of the clubhouse, tennis courts, outdoor swimming pool, indoor swimming pool. So that ends up being like over 400amonth. So but luckily that’s, that’s about as high as it gets. So we don’t have any, you know, two three bedroom condos here that are paying like 7, 800amonth, like in some other markets.

Avery [00:15:16]:
So.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:15:17]:
Yeah. And with the houses, Branson Canyon’s an older one. So it’s on that, you know, per month per building, no matter what size you are. But all the newer developments are going by square footage. So $1.15 per square foot is what the going rate has been. One of the communities went up to 129 per square foot. And I just saw that bill. So that’s, you know, that’s my 10 bedroom house.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:15:40]:
So that came in 6300, 6500, I don’t remember for the year. So, you know, even when you do it by month, that’s still a little over 500amonth. That’s really, really reasonable because that includes our water and our trash and all the common elements. Maintenance, our road maintenance, you know, the landscaping, all of that. It’s so it’s, it’s really actually a very good deal.

Avery [00:16:06]:
Yeah. And I mean my place that I owned, I mean we had an insurance claim that we didn’t even pay out of our deductible. It was literally like, okay, we’ll get this disgusting seafoam green colored roofs over at Meadowbrook. Remember those, Tye?

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:16:17]:
Yep, I remember.

Avery [00:16:18]:
And it was like, okay, I guess this is. And they were all like miscolored too because they had various like time periods. But we had a hailstorm. They brought in some person that went in and was like, yeah, I can do this whole thing and we’ll get the insurance to pay for it. So brand new roof and I had no money out of pocket, so definitely makes the place look really nice. Got a nice dark like slat gray color and it looks, looks way better. So.

Bill Beck [00:16:44]:
Awesome. Anything else you want to hit on with HOA fees or assessments before we move on to something else?

Avery [00:16:53]:
I think assessments for or. Yeah, with assessments is just, I think buyers get worried when they see the condo resale certificates. When you do your transaction, Missouri requires you to have basically a form from the HOA describing here’s what the fees are, here’s what the owner has paid up to date, or if they’re delinquent on payments, what they owe. You know, here’s what the insurance looks like. Here’s what the budget looks like. So they provide all that to the buyers. They have full disclosure of what they’re buying into as, like, a third party. So with that condo disclosure, I mean, that’s.

Avery [00:17:27]:
That’s like people get. I’ve had people get freaked out. They’re like, what the heck? They owed, like, $2,000 here and 4, 600. What? And then they get all scared and it’s like, no, no, no, no. They will. They will not be passing that along to you. That is, they are due to pay that. It’s part of the Missouri contract.

Avery [00:17:45]:
And even, like, the title company will not let them. So I’ve actually got a closing tomorrow where they were delinquent on paying their dues because they didn’t want to pay the assessment. So the title company literally has a line item where they’re settling it with the HOA directly. So.

Bill Beck [00:18:02]:
Oh, so they just take it out of their proceeds. Yeah, I was going to ask that. So in other markets that I’m licensed in, I’m not licensed in Missouri, so I don’t know those contracts, the assessment can be negotiated that the seller pays it if there’s one coming up, or the buyer pays it. So in Missouri, is it in that disclosure if there’s an upcoming assessment? Because, you know, a lot of people will say, I don’t want to pay an assessment. There’s one coming up. Let me just sell it. Because I don’t want to pay the assessment. So how is that disclosed? Is it.

Avery [00:18:32]:
There’s like a line that says, is there any planned, like, changes or planned? And it’s interesting because it’s like the timing with which these HOA boards meet. It’s like very narrow window with wind, with which they know preemptively when they’re going to do something. Because usually it’s like, hey, we met and we just decided to increase the fee next month. So it’s like very small window. It’s not like, yeah, in 2025, we’re planning on doing this because they usually don’t. Don’t disclose that. Right, right.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:19:02]:
No, they don’t, but they’re. Keep in mind there is a way to get a discount on your HOA fees, too. For instance, Fall Creek Community, if you pay annually instead of monthly, and you pay by the due date, you can get a 10% discount. So also look at your HOAS or COAS and find out, okay, are they in need of some money? Are they offering any incentives for you to pay early or pay in full. There’s another community we’re in that they were a little bit short on the budget. So they said, hey, anybody who wants to pay in full two months early, we’ll give you a little bit of a discount, put your name in a hat. And so then they drew out 10 people and they said, okay, you get the discount and you pay us in full now. And that was a way to get, you know, not having to do an assessment, but we’re able to get their budget up a little bit further.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:19:49]:
So, you know, keep in mind that there are different ways to save money on your dues too.

Bill Beck [00:19:54]:
I did not know that.

Avery [00:19:55]:
There are one more thing in there with, with regards to like the master policy. With these insurance policies, it basically allows again, you as the owner of a condo to have walls in coverage, which then becomes pretty steeply discounted because the majority of like the building replacement and exterior and all like general liability, it’s like they’ve already got a policy. So then your insurance underwriter can go ahead and like just cover a portion of it versus again having to do the whole building. So.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:20:23]:
And that’s attached, that’s not the detached, not the houses. The deep. Yeah, be careful of that too. Detached condos, AKA houses, you have to cover everything with your insurance, Correct?

Bill Beck [00:20:37]:
Good to know, good to know. So typically HOAs are going to cover your water and sewer. What about electric? If they don’t cover electric, what do we typically see for electric bills? At the different price. Sorry.

Avery [00:20:50]:
At the different sizes, it goes along with seasonality. Right. So like if it’s January, no one’s here. Like for like a two bedroom condo, it’s probably 25, 30 bucks a month just to like, I mean maybe if it’s cold here, depending on weather to keep that running, but maybe average through the course of the year. I mean, because you could get into July and it’s like 300, 270 for a three bedroom condo. And that, that becomes like okay, well what’s the average? I think safely saying 100 to 125amonth for the smaller condos. And what do you think, Diane? For larger property?

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:21:30]:
Yeah. For the big ones you’re looking at 2 to 250 on the lower end. And then going up from there, I’d say average for a four or five bedroom, you’re probably around 300 or so. It’s, it’s not that bad. Just keep in mind that if you’ve got a hot tub, which if you’re Going to have a house, you’re going to have a hot tub that still has to be kept running during the winter, unless you winterize it. And then you’re absolutely not going to get any winter bookings at all. So January, February, we look at it as we might cover cost at the. No, we, no, you don’t cover costs.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:22:04]:
It’s a black hole in January and February, basically. And then if you got a house with a pool, one of our houses has a private indoor pool. And I think the most, the highest Bill we’ve had is around 1100 for the month. But like Bill said, it’s very seasonal. Spring and fall are great because it’s lower bills.

Bill Beck [00:22:25]:
Okay, cool. And you said hot tubs. So that, that brings me to another question. So typically, what are the cleaning fees around here and do they do the hot tubs or do you have to hire a separate person to do the hot tubs?

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:22:41]:
It, it varies. Shoot. I think four bedrooms or so we’re, we’re paying around 2 to 250 per turn. A 10 bedroom can get up to 550 to 600 per turn. And then as far as hot tub cle goes, it just depends upon your crew. So at first we started by hiring the local hot tub company where we bought the hot tubs to come out at every single turn. Now remember, you have to have somebody come check it after every stay there. That’s not negotiable.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:23:10]:
But the thing is, is they don’t work weekends. It’s like, oh, well, we have turns on the weekends. What are we going to do here? So they actually will train someone for free. They are happy to train anyone on how to do it. So our cleaning team is trained, they know how to do it. And so they just do that within their regular and take care of that.

Bill Beck [00:23:30]:
Okay. Do they also take your trash? Do the cleaners take your trash or is that part of the hoa?

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:23:38]:
Oh, yeah, that is a really good thing to know. Okay, so your HOA takes care of the cost, but all the trash goes into dumpsters. There’s not a daily trash pickup or anything like that. So one of the checkout instructions is we ask the guests to take their trash to the dumpster. And I know sometimes that gets to a sticking point because people think, oh, well, I’m a guest, I don’t take my trash out. Well, you know what you need? It’s one of those area things. The locations of our area, it’s not like we have daily trash pickup. It can only be twice a week.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:24:09]:
Maybe three times a week during the season. And it is very important to get the trash taken to the dumpster, not left out anywhere, because the animals will get into it, and then it’s an even bigger mess.

Avery [00:24:19]:
Yeah. Especially there’s, like, a holiday that throws it off. It’s just. It’s not a good look when you see a mountain of trash bags and you’re like, someone needs to take care of that. Yeah.

Bill Beck [00:24:32]:
What kind of animals get into it? Is it bears or raccoons or. What is it?

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:24:37]:
I haven’t seen any bears in there. Have you, Bill?

Avery [00:24:40]:
I haven’t seen any bears.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:24:43]:
Raccoons, dogs, birds. Yeah. Box. We’ll get into it.

Avery [00:24:51]:
Mostly bugs. I mean, that was one of the big things when I moved here, is just the amount of bugs we have.

Bill Beck [00:24:56]:
Really.

Avery [00:24:57]:
Yeah.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:24:59]:
Yeah. So. So on that note, we should probably talk about pest control as an expense. Oh, yes, I know, right? So look at that.

Avery [00:25:07]:
Bedbugs are my favorite.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:25:09]:
Oh, my gosh. No, no.

Avery [00:25:12]:
Are one of those things, you know, if you’ve ever been bitten by a bedbug, you’ll never forget just because that itch is something. Something different. So one time bachelor party, like, 10 years ago. A long story. Bennett Springs. Yeah. Anyway, so. But bedbugs are, like, obviously, like, the most awful thing that could happen because people freak out, and it will happen.

Avery [00:25:37]:
Eggs. Yeah. Yeah. So highly recommend. Very minimum. Get those mattress covers. Bedbug. That was one of the first things I did when I got my place.

Avery [00:25:45]:
Cover every single mattress, get that thing locked up. And then we actually have bedbug inspections that we actually can do. So if you’re wanting to make sure that, you know, you’re buying a property that’s got all this stuff, like, you can have that, that done. Where pest inspection company will go out there, check the beds, give you the clearance. And luckily, I haven’t had any of my deals where they’ve caught anything, but it’s always good to triple check. It’s hard, though, too, because how would you know that? Like, maybe the next set of guests that may have brought them in, like, from a timing standpoint. So how do you do that? I think there is. I mean, Tyen, do you do preventive bedbug sprays or.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:26:26]:
Yeah, so we do a bedbug defense. So as he, as, you know, Avery said, it’s not if, it’s when. And the one time that we did have bedbugs, it actually was not even in the beds. It was in the couches. So it’s, you know, they can do go anywhere. And what we do is a bedbug defense that our pest guy does and it helps to get rid of them quicker. So with, you know, we don’t have to go down for weeks on end trying to treat everything. Instead it’s just a few days to be able to get rid of them.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:26:55]:
So we do that, plus our quarterly pest control sprays. And we include spiders and scorpions too. So you definitely want to get that defense on the spiders before October hits when it starts getting cold and then the spiders try to come in. And because of the type of area we have with the rocks and everything, we actually have scorpions. So if you’re in an area where they’re doing building, the construction will get those scorpions all mad and they’ll get around. Now they’re, they’re not big ones that you think from the desert, but they’re like itty bitty tiny ones. The one I’ve seen in like, you know, an inch or less, but they’re still there.

Avery [00:27:32]:
I’ve gotten away with ant control too. I’ve had guests complain about ants. And it’s weird because like the unit I have is like the top unit of a three story building. So it’s like, how the heck are they getting up there? Luckily the, you know, you get a pest control spray out there for like a hundred bucks and I do it like once a year. That’s it’s all good. So.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:27:51]:
Yeah. And the wasps, you got to be careful of the wasps. They like to get into the hot tub trim because it’s nice and warm in there. So be aware of the wasps as well.

Bill Beck [00:28:02]:
Yeah. And in the wintertime they’ll get in there and like, I guess wasps don’t technically like hibernate, but kind of, you know, they go dormant and then the hot tub will warm them up and like get them going again. Actually, at Christmas last year, we were at one of our rentals and that we just bought it and so we hadn’t used the fireplace yet and we went to open the flu and like a ton of wasps fell down. Like they’d been in there all summer and they were all dead. And we’re like, okay, no big deal. We’ll just light this thing up and burn them when they started to get warm. When the fire, when Luke lit the fire, they started all to come alive and there were like 300 of them. And I took the kids and ran out and let him deal with it, but he just like closed it up and let them burn to death.

Bill Beck [00:28:51]:
But it was, it was really like a horror movie there. For a second. We. I didn’t think about the fact that the warmth would wake him up. Anyway, that’s got nothing to do with Branson. You just reminded me with the wasp. So Tyenne always gets to hear my near death stories for some reason when, when she’s on it.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:29:08]:
Wait, you can’t have near death Justin Branson.

Bill Beck [00:29:11]:
Yeah, yeah, I, I’ll save my near death in Branson story. It’s not really that interesting. It’s just we took a wrong turn in the motorhome and couldn’t get turned around. So on to the next thing. So we’ve talked about cleaning fees and what the cleaners cover. So do you have to hire a separate linen company or do the cleaners take your linens off site and wash them and bring them back later?

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:29:33]:
It just depends upon the process and what that person does. We used to do a lot in unit laundry work to the point of everything’s taken off site now. So it really will depend upon, you know, how many properties you have, how many different cleaners you have, if you hire someone as an employee or as a contractor and what all that your process is. One of the things we definitely do is that we always have three sets of linens and towels. This way there’s a clean set in the property on the beds in place, there’s a clean set in the closet, and then there’s a set being washed. And that way when the turn time comes, they can get it done a lot faster. Because we do have big houses, we have a lot of same day turns. That means there’s only seven, six hours to turn a house.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:30:17]:
And our big house takes about 20 man hours. So that doesn’t add up. Right. Six hours for 20 man hours. So it’s definitely a process that you have to be very careful with. And helping your cleaners out as much as possible with linen management and towel management is really key, especially the bigger the house you have.

Avery [00:30:37]:
Yeah, and also good point too, as far as you’re going to need additional people for larger properties. Right. Like you said, 20 man hours. So, you know, with one, two, three bedrooms, you definitely can get away with one person doing it on a same day term. But you start to get into larger properties, it’s like you might need two and then obviously what would need three for that?

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:30:56]:
Right.

Avery [00:30:56]:
If my math’s right, you can’t, you can’t math that together.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:31:01]:
No, you can’t. It’s. I think they generally try to take a crew about five in there. Because they don’t do just my house that day. They do more than one house.

Bill Beck [00:31:09]:
Yeah, yeah. I hear investors a lot of times say, like, I want it to be the same person every time or I want them to wash it. I want them to wash my linens in my unit so that they don’t get mixed up with anybody else’s. And I get that, but it’s just not efficient at all.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:31:24]:
No, it’s not. I mean, some of the efficiencies that we do is all our pillowcases are king. So we don’t. We do all king pillowcases, even if it’s a standard size pillow. That way we know what all our pillowcases are and they don’t have to go searching for different sizes. Same thing with our flat sheets. All our flat sheets are king. Doesn’t matter if it’s a queen size or a king size bed, the flat sheet is king.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:31:45]:
This way we’re also able to buy wholesale in bulk and it helps our linen management very much.

Bill Beck [00:31:52]:
Oh, good to know. I did not know that trick. Okay, so let’s talk about the permitting cost and process. So I assume you have to get a short term rental permit or license of some sort in this market. Right. What’s the process for that and what is the cost associated with it, if any?

Avery [00:32:16]:
Well, since we already talked about the zoning, I mean, as long as you’re like in that, you’re in the good zone. It’s pretty, pretty simple. Process just depends on where you’re at too. So without making this super boring, I mean, cost is minimal. What is it like depending on where you’re at? Maybe $50, right? Tyen for.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:32:37]:
Yeah, it’s not bad. It’s just you got to make sure you do the different levels because city limits, you have a city license and registration. Then you have the tourism tax. The county, you have the county level license, business license. And then depending upon which county you’re at, you might have a health inspection. You got to pay for that. Your fire suppression inspection, pay for that. And all of that is annual and there’s lots of paperwork that goes with it too.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:33:05]:
Then you have to make sure you have your sales tax ID place with the state of Missouri. Now that means even if you plan to simply strictly be on Airbnb or just do Airbnb in vrbo and you’re like, oh, well, they collect all the taxes for me. I don’t have to do any of that. Yes, you do. You still have to file a zero tax Due, you have to have your numbers in place. And then of course we, as we talked about city of Branson, you can’t do those through the platforms. You have to add those in additional. And there’s different ways.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:33:35]:
There is a way to add that so it’s automatically added to every stay on the platforms. But you have to manually submit that to the city of Branson every month. So you’re looking at your licenses, you’re looking at your tourism tax, you’re looking at your sales tax. And then you’re looking at different inspections and all of that, you know, monthly, quarterly, annually, depending upon what it is.

Bill Beck [00:33:56]:
So what’s the typical. If you’re either city or county, let’s look at occupancy taxes first and then we’ll do sales tax. So what’s the local occupancy tax?

Avery [00:34:07]:
It’s like seven points for the county, right? Isn’t it seven point?

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:34:13]:
Nope. So city of Branson tourism tax rate is 4%. If you are not in the city of Branson, you do not have tourism tax. So it’s zero. Yeah.

Bill Beck [00:34:22]:
Wrong.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:34:26]:
So if you are in Taney county, solely Taney County. County and state together is 6.35, which is really great, especially in those big houses. So then you move into city, you have to add city sales tax and the tourism tax. So 8.35 plus 4. You’re now looking at 12.35%. So for instance, I have a 10 bedroom and one neighborhood that’s within city limits. And then I have my six bedroom that’s priced as a 10 bedroom because of the pool that’s outside city limits. Even if I price the rate, the my pool house has a 6% advantage because of taxes.

Bill Beck [00:35:07]:
Okay, so add those all up again. It is 4% inside city limits of Branson.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:35:14]:
Just for tourism.

Bill Beck [00:35:16]:
Just for tourism. What’s the sales tax?

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:35:19]:
8.35 total. So that includes state and county which that together 6.35. I think state is 4.225. And then you add county, then you add City. So 8.35 for sales, 4% for tourism. Now if you go over to Stone county or Indian Point, it’s different yet.

Bill Beck [00:35:44]:
Okay. All right, very helpful, Diane.

Avery [00:35:47]:
I still use your Facebook post on how to go do your. I’m like, this is good. I’m going to copy this and give this to clients and just, just so you get credit. I want you to know that.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:35:58]:
Thank you. Yeah. So anybody looking at coming in, come to the Facebook group that was started by, I think Martha Clark or Something and I got a post in there about how to go about doing the taxes and how to get your sales tax ID through the state and who you need to talk to. And that’s all laid out because a lot of people get really scared about that. And it’s, it’s not that hard at all. It’s very easy. And then paying your taxes is, can be done online in Missouri, except for that tourism tax that goes to the city, but everything else can be done online. And it’s a very, very simple five minute process.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:36:33]:
I’m so thankful the state makes it very easy to do.

Bill Beck [00:36:37]:
Awesome. And while we’re on the subject of taxes, what is the typical property tax?

Avery [00:36:44]:
Very low. What is it like 1% in some cases of assessed values. So I mean we, we’re talking hundreds of dollars for some of the smaller property, like $700 a year. Some of the larger two, three, four bedroom condos, maybe 1100 a year. So yeah, yeah, it’s crazy.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:37:09]:
Mine, I’m paying 4,000 and more and I. And YouTube. Well, no, nobody could see my face except for Avery and Bill when, when Avery asked my question. Property tax is, is dependent upon if it’s assessed residential or commercial as well. So there’s two different tax rates that we have. And right now there is a bit of an debate, slash, argument, slash. I’m going to be submitting an appeal, I’m sure, because the county tax assessor in whatever county you are in Missouri is allowed to interpret Missouri property tax statutes according to what they feel is the best definition. So I do not agree with our county assessor and neither does a lot of the folks.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:37:58]:
So we will be appealing again this time around. Property taxes are assessed in the odd year. So it’s something that you do every other year. It’s not something you have to do every year. Another thing we are working towards, if you’re looking at coming into Branson or even the state of Missouri, we’re trying to get a group of Missouri folks together and get the state legislature to actually define nightly rentals and what’s taxed and if they’re residential or commercial and how it is because every single, like I said, can define it differently. So just be aware of that as well.

Avery [00:38:33]:
Yeah, there was a board of equalization meeting to have this topic. A lot of people were an uproar because the assessor just arbitrarily was like, we’re going to change this to a commercial tax rate if you own this thing. And it’s like, well, how do you determine People using it for commercial purposes. If it’s a residential, you know, neighborhood, like, obviously people aren’t like, you know, doing a T shirt shop out of their vacation rental. So you can’t, you can’t assume that 100 of the year that this is a commercial business. So, yeah, hopefully that gets overturned or changed because I guess you’re. They, they basically settled and said, hey, if you are, if this is your first one, you can have a prorated 25 commercial tax rate and then 75% residential, but if you have any additional ones, then we’re going to keep it as commercial. So.

Bill Beck [00:39:25]:
All right, well, interesting. Hopefully they listen to you and your appeal is granted. Is there anything else specific to Branson? So that’s all my points and questions that I had. Any, any other expenses that are specific to this market that we might need to talk about. Doesn’t seem like there’s any like ongoing natural disasters that occur there, like hurricanes or forest fires or anything like that.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:39:50]:
And we get the random tornado, but like I said, it’s. It’s random. And the last one went down the strip, hop, skip and jump, taking out of the older properties that needed to be gotten rid of anyway. So that was really great.

Avery [00:40:04]:
Earthquake coverage on your insurance. Tyenne. Yeah.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:40:08]:
Yes. Yeah. So we do random. It’s not. We’re near a fault. You didn’t know that there’s a big fault in between. Missouri has the New Madrid earthquake fault, so that is something. But it’s not a big deal, you know, but something you do need to be aware of is the hail storms.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:40:26]:
So we do get quite a bit of hail. We just had one recently, a few weeks ago. And in the summer it’ll come through again, I’m sure. But hail can get up to. I think we saw 1 1/2 to 2 inch in size. So if you’ve got an older roof, you’re just gonna have to be aware of that. The old, the newer properties, they do really great roofs on them. So, you know, not concerned about that.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:40:48]:
All of our properties have been great. The ones that I had built back in 2007, we did get brand new roofs on both of those when we had a big hailstorm come through. Gosh, that was 2020. Yeah, around Covid. So, yeah, hail happens. You know that that’s about the biggest natural disaster. The big thunderstorms that come through. Fire is just, just, you know, be not fire as in what happens in California or Gatlinburg forest fires, but more of fire safety with your grills.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:41:19]:
There are I. Unfortunately, there’s some condos that people put grills in the wrong spot and has caused massive fires. And your neighbors have burned your place down. So be very aware of placement and fire safety, smoke alarms and all that.

Bill Beck [00:41:35]:
Yeah, we actually had a guest move our grill in another market to be too close to the fence and burn our fence down. And the only reason we found out about it is because one of Luke’s running buddies is a fireman and was like, hey, we were just at your house, thought you might want to know.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:41:53]:
Yeah. And one of the things we do is we make sure there’s a five pound fire extinguisher outside, not next to the grill, because you never want to have to grab it when the grill is on fire. That’s a little hot. So a little bit farther away. And. And we’ve had neighboring houses use them because our guests will say, hey, we just helped the neighbor put the fire out. We need another fire extinguisher. Like, okay, cool, we’re bringing one right over.

Tyann Marcink Hammond [00:42:16]:
No problem.

Bill Beck [00:42:17]:
Yeah, so this guest had. It didn’t actually catch on fire until they left. They checked out. Oh, there was nobody there, but it was fine. It. It didn’t end up being that bad, but it definitely happened, so. All right, anything else? Branson specific. Haven’t had any earthquakes recently.

Bill Beck [00:42:38]:
Anything else?

Avery [00:42:39]:
Nothing. Nothing market specific. Just like annual. Like, do your H Vac and if, you know, you got to do some, you know, fixing of things that have been broken from, you know, just over general maintenance over time. I mean, there’s nothing really like, specific. Thankfully here, that’s like a crazy high dollar item. I mean, basically the HOA fees, big ticket item, but because it covers a lot, it’s kind of the big takeaway. So people are analyzing that.

Avery [00:43:07]:
Don’t be like, oh my gosh, sticker shock. Be like, okay, what is it covering? And then use that as far as, like analyzing the property as far as what are those line items that are being covered by that?

Bill Beck [00:43:20]:
Okay, cool. Well, it’s pretty straightforward. It seems like pretty low maintenance market in terms of since everything’s condos, there’s not really a lot of maintenance that you’re having to do. So that’s pretty cool. All right, guys. Well, thank you so much for your time, y’ all. If you want to buy a condo with Bill or maybe a house every now and then, you can email us at agents, the shorttermshop.com. or if you just have further questions, you can join our Facebook group.

Bill Beck [00:43:46]:
It’s called short term rental long term wealth just like my book behind me. And we also have a weekly office hours live on Zoom every Thursday. And you can sign up on with sign up for that@strquestions.com thanks everyone.